


The Outing

by triggernometry



Series: Slice of Afterlife [4]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Body Horror, Undead, entragian is a gross cuss ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 05:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16613258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggernometry/pseuds/triggernometry
Summary: Booth's gotta check some traps. Klagohaj's gotta tag along, which means the baby has to come with. The Wasteland makes an appearance, too.





	The Outing

It's been two days since the hatching. They've not yet named the hatchling, on account of Booth's belief that naming him too soon will invite misfortune, so Klagohaj just refers to him as _Lil Cuss_ and Booth only gives him a sidelong glance once before resigning herself to hearing that for the next however-long.

Booth put together a carrying sling for the hatchling on the first morning, which is what Klagohaj has strapped across his chest now as they head away from camp and toward the hollowed-out remains of an inactive maw-pit that Klagohaj likes to call Big Swoller.

It's not quite mid-morning. The sun is up, brighter than usual behind the curtain of miasma which is the thinnest it's been in the last handful of days. An ill omen, in Klagohaj's view; Booth, who is herself an ill omen, shrugs off his superstitions and simply calls it ”the weather.” They make good time to Big Swoller, even with Klagohaj having to stop every dozen yards or so to point out this or that thing to the hatchling on his chest and explain what it is in an uncharacteristically peppy, high-pitched voice.

The ground simply ends where Big Swoller begins, tumbling down in a jagged rubble of rusty-red and dark brown where the deeper soil's been exposed. There's a plateau some ways down from the top of the crater, where the soil's soft and rich with the leavings of the maw-pit's former occupant, and it's here Booth has set up a number of snare traps.

It's clear from the top of the crater that one snare is full.

Booth slides down the embankment with her raggedy wings half-flared behind her; Klagohaj follows, but slower and with his primary focus on neither dropping the hatchling nor accidentally squishing him. Booth alights on the plateau well before he does, sending up a plume of rusty powder as she lands, and makes a beeline for the full snare.

This close, Klagohaj can see it's a false podid, its scaly hide caked in the dust it's stirred up by trying gamely to escape the snare for however long it's been down here. There's a rough circle paced into the dirt around it. The creature gives a startled squeak as Booth grabs it with one hand, holding it firmly in place while she slips the snare off and then lifts it into her arms, flipped onto its back like a baby, digging claws flailing uselessly at the air.

She breaks its neck with one meaty _crack_.

”Booth!” Klagohaj shields Lil Cuss' eyes with one hand while recoiling, aghast from the pearlcatcher. ”Not in front of the _kid_!”  
  
Booth holds the false podid by its neck in one hand. ”He can still see me,” she says flatly, indicating the rows of eyes with a nod.

Klagohaj makes a disgruntled noise in his throat, unfurling a wing in a dramatic gesture so as to shield most of Lil Cuss with his body.

”You think I'll scar him for life?” Booth asks. She sounds amused. She tugs a knife from her shoulder holster and crouches down in the dirt to start dressing the false podid.

”Happened to me,” Klagohaj says. He pauses briefly to unwind the carrying sling from his shoulders and plop Lil Cuss down on the ground closest to the side of Big Swoller. ”Auntie Blackgill gut a yawner in front of me when I was just small. Nightmares for days. Set me on a dark path. Now lookit me.”

Booth looks up from the false podid and gives him a level stare.

”Happy as a clam watchin' a beautiful angel feed our family,” he finishes with a grin. Booth snorts, shakes her head, and resumes carving a long red line through the false podid's underbelly.

Klagohaj's never had much stomach for hunting anything bigger or cuter than a minnow, so he averts his eyes from Booth's work and instead turns to see how Lil Cuss is doing. True to his name, Lil Cuss has shaken loose of his carrying sling and begun an unsteady, clumsy ascent up the side of Big Swoller.

”Look at that!” Klagohaj gives a braying laugh and claps his hands together in delight, claws clicking together loudly. ”Already gettin' in trouble. I'mma see how far he can get on his own.” He looks over his shoulder at Booth, who is clearly just recovering from jumping part of the way out of her skin. She gives him a sour look. ”Sorry,” he says. ”If I get all the way up there again, you good down here?”

She nods. ”Go on.”

It turns out Lil Cuss is more than up to the challenge of climbing exactly one dozen tiny steps of the way up Big Swoller, before he flops down, exhausted, on the ragged tumbledown embankment.

”C'mon, I gotcha.” Klagohaj plucks the hatchling up, puts him on his shoulders, and climbs on all fours up Big Swoller. Just as they crest the top of the crater, Lil Cuss goes from flopped tiredly over Klagohaj's crest of spines to electrified with movement. He gives a squeak loud enough to pop an eardrum and flings himself from Klagohaj's head to the flat earth above Big Swoller.

”What in--”

Klagohaj goes from feeling pretty fine to feeling like an ice cold pit of swampwater's opened up in his stomach without warning him first. Lil Cuss scrabbles over the lip of Big Swoller and dashes off, heading straight for a shambling outline of a dragon not even a half-wingspan away from the crater.

Klagohaj does not have time to formulate any kind of words, instead making a jumbled, strangled _eeeennneurgherherg_ noise which contains a variety of sentiments ranging from _Don't do that_ to _Bringer help me_ to _Booth is gonna kill me stone dead,_ again. His heart – if it's still in there – leaps into his throat, propelling him over the lip of Big Swoller and onto flat ground.

Lil Cuss stands one good panicking leap from Klagohaj and altogether _too damn close_ to the stranger. The draconic form of the stranger makes him hesitate for a minute – just a traveler, maybe, he thinks, _hopes,_ or a pilgrim strayed from the Road – but then he sees the way its wings shudder and roil and realises that, whatever this stranger _was_ is irrelevant to their present circumstances.

Somewhere behind him, from approximately one whole world away, he can hear Booth calling out something from the depths of Big Swoller. He doesn't answer, his gaze locked on the scene unfolding before him.

Lil Cuss makes an honestly somewhat unsettling chittering noise and takes two clumsy, overconfident steps toward the stranger. The stranger's head dips down, the beat-up hat on its head now obscuring their face as it stares down at  the hatchling.

It's one thing to see a wanderer from the safety of Booth's stone and driftwood circle, skulking in the dark – another thing entirely to see one out in the open Wasteland, brazenly walking around in broad daylight. The icewater in Klagohaj's gut spreads through his limbs, making them feel rubbery and weak. He'd rather turn tail and run, truth be told – but Lil Cuss is _right there_ and he just doesn't have that luxury anymore.

So he does what comes to mind second: run full-tilt at the wanderer, hollering his fool head off.

The creature doesn't really react, which honestly throws him off a little. Back when he was alive, most folks would at least back up a step if a few hundred pounds of pissed-off ridgeback came hurtling their way. This creature doesn't budge.

So he finds himself in the unenviable position of being smack-dab face-to-face with with an honest-to-Bringer wanderer. This close, he can see its skin is dry, pulled tight to the bone with a waxy, dusty cast to it. The clothes still stuck to its body are old and raggedy enough to be in danger of up and blowing away in the next strong breeze. And sweet _Mother_ , does it _reek._ The creature lifts its head enough to look right at him and its eyes, well –

The eyes of the dragon it used to be are long gone. The remainder of its face is covered with a rosy rash of irregularly-shaped eyes, none of them draconic in nature and most of which are staring at Klagohaj. He has a vague impression of more eyes opening behind its head, somewhere in the ruined mass of flesh that used to be wings, but he’s too transfixed by the eyes in its face to look away. The circular arrangement, the rough height, are familiar to him and his eyes go wide with surprise.

”I thought I told _you_ to _get.”_

The creature finally, _finally_ takes a step back. Klagohaj advances a step forward, trying to put himself between the wanderer and Lil Cuss. The hatchling, of course, has other ideas. Klagohaj feels a jolt of fear at the sensation of the hatchling pushing past his leg and stumping closer to the wanderer. He makes that weird little chittering noise again and the wanderer's head drops once more to stare at him.

”C'mon now,” Klagohaj tries, trying to maintain his full intimidation height while also stooping low enough to grab the hatchling by – well, any part of him, at this point. He fumbles and Lil Cuss continues blithely forward; the wanderer stoops to all fours and Klagohaj watches in horror and wonder commingled as the hatchling reaches out to touch the wanderer's desiccated snout with an audible _plap_ noise of new skin against very old.

Before he can say anything, the wanderer simply sags in place, as if giving up the struggle against gravity altogether. Lil Cuss coos and chitters. The wanderer's cluster of eyes close for a moment and the world seems to hold its breath – then it looks up at Klagohaj again with only its ruined sockets.

It opens its mouth, lets air pass laboriously over its yellowed tongue and blackening teeth. The passage of air dislodges dry chunks of dirt and a disgruntled centipede from its mouth and the creature makes a soft, rasping hiss before, amazingly, words come out.

” _Water,”_ the creature breathes.

”Uh,” Klagohaj says. He's already reaching for the skin on his hip before his brain quite catches up with him. It's just the way you do: somebody asks for help out here, you give it to 'em, if you're able. He's not sure as the wanderer counts as _somebody_ , but he suddenly feels a stab of sympathy for a fellow victim of unusual circumstance.

Plus, he's got Lil Cuss watching him with several dozen pairs of curious eyes now and the wholly alien urge to be a useful role model is suddenly very pressing.

He uncorks the flask and hands it to the wanderer. It takes it with trembling, decaying claws and drinks greedily. A beetle crawls panicked from the creature's mouth and drops onto the red soil below, flailing its legs uselessly in the air. By the time the creature's done, the flask's mouth is caked in ruddy mud.

”You just hang on to that,” Klagohaj says as the shaking claw attempts to return the flask to him. ”On the house.”  
  
The creature gives a dry, wordless rasp and wraps the flask's strap around its claw, then seems to forget about it altogether while pressing that claw back down into the dirt to hold itself up.

The shift of dirt and scree behind him makes him jump. Then he remembers. _Booth._

”Haj, who the hell is-- _Get away from that._ ”

He turns his head just in time to see Booth lunging forward on all fours, eyes ablaze with fury and fear. Behind her, the dressed false podid has been slung aside into the dirt. Booth shoulders past Klagohaj and slams into the wanderer head-on. Lil Cuss gives an unhappy squawk; the wanderer makes only a dry twig-snap sound as Booth slams her full weight into it and sends both the creature and herself flying tail over teakettle.  
  
Booth is up snake-quick, snarling in a way Klagohaj's never heard her carry on before. ” _Get away from my boy_ ,” she says in a hiss so hard and furious it sends spittle flying clear across onto the wanderer's flailing form. She draws the knife she used on the false podid and holds it ready.

The creature, for its part, adopts no defensive – or, for that matter, aggressive – stance at all, simply gets up to unsteady legs and eyes Booth sidelong with the right half of its ocular cluster. It backs away and Booth follows, knife ready.

From this angle, Klagohaj can see the roil of its wings pulsing and – shifting. The wanderer was probably a skydancer, once, and now the feathers are gone – hell, most of the _wing_ is gone, just a mass of flesh with something organic breathing rhythmically in the middle of it, trails and ribbons of not-really-skin drifting lazily behind the creature without quite following its movement.

”Booth,” Klagohaj calls. ”I think it's done been told. Just leave it.”  
  
” _Leave_ it? It'll kill our _boy._ ”  
  
Klagohaj looks down at Lil Cuss, who looks stricken by the events unfolding before him. He moves to approach the wanderer again, and Klagohaj hunkers down to catch him by the tail and hold him in place.

”I don't think so, Booth.”  
  
” _You've_ never--”

He can hear the venom building in her throat so he just says, louder than he needs to: ”It talks, Booth.”  
  
She hesitates. The wanderer takes that as an opportunity to put more distance between itself and her.  
  
”It wanted water, is all. I gave it my flask. It ain't hurt nothin'. Just leave it an' let's go home.”  
  
Booth is unmoving, still turned away from him and the child, still eyeing the wanderer up. He can't see her face, but every line of her body tells him she's got to be glaring fire at the creature in front of her.

”Booth, c'mon. Let's get on. No point wastin' energy on something we can't even _eat._ ”  
  
Lil Cuss burbles discontentedly from under Klagohaj's hand. That seems to do it; he can see the hand holding the knife drop slightly. Not much, but enough. Booth's wings furl behind her again, though her tail's still lashing like a snake freshly bereft of its head.

She gestures aggressively with the knife toward the Wasteland behind the wanderer. ”Get out of here before I come to my senses,” she says. ”Next time I lay eyes on you, I leave you for the bonepickers.”

”She'll do it, too,” Klagohaj offers. Booth turns to give him a stern side-eye which very clearly communicates how little she needs his backup. ”She's left me for the bonepickers, like, four times now.”

”About to be a fifth.” This just barely in range of his hearing. He can't help but snort a laugh.

The wanderer shuffles away from them by way of awkward side-stepping, until it's well out of Booth's lunging distance. It pauses only once, when Lil Cuss makes a forlorn chittering noise, and then it turns tail and lopes away on four disjointed limbs.

Booth stays watching after it for much longer than the thing's visible in the Wasteland haze. She does not holster the knife, instead holds it with the handle pressed tight against her thigh. Klagohaj lightly touches the back of Lil Cuss' head and then, very reluctantly, very slowly, stands and approaches Booth.

She wheels on him as soon as his fingertips so much as brush the sleeve of her overcoat. He doesn't have time to even open his mouth before she shoves him with all of her strength – which is not inconsiderable, in Booth's case. He gives a comical _oof_ and staggers back.

”God damned good-for-nothing brainless _fool_ ,” Booth says. She doesn't shout, in fact her voice is scarcely more than a whisper, ragged and thick with emotion. The knife makes a soft _schuf_ noise as she flings it into the dirt beside them. ”I'd skin you where you stand if I didn't love you this much.”

The surprise of her statement – no, not the skinning part, he's heard _that_ before – leaves him momentarily frozen. All he can do at first is stare at her.

Then he sees the single wet line trailing down the dirt on her cheek and that thaws him out right quick. He knows better than to just go right up and hug her, so he just stays where he is and opens his arms wide. She hesitates just a minute before she closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around his middle.

”There ya go,” he says softly. He folds his arms over her shoulders and holds her as tight as he dares.

They've never hugged much. The last time was also the first time, the night they burned Daur's Caravan to ash. She'd plucked most of the memories out of his skull after, but he remembers this: She'd cut old Daur a new smile from ear to ear and then sat there in the blood-soaked sand, tears streaming down her cheeks and howling like a beast caught in a pit trap. She hadn't commanded him to hold her, he'd just folded himself around her gentle as he could and felt the hot tears soak his shirt to the skin because it felt like he ought to.

”We're gonna be all right,” he says softly.

She snorts, the sound muffled against his coat. ”If you don't get us all killed doing something stupid,” she says.

” _If_ I don't get us all killed doin' something stupid,” he agrees.


End file.
